As a parent I’ve heard this phrase probably more times than I can count. It’s one of the most annoying phrases we can hear. Right up there with are we there yet! When my children tell me they don’t want to do something, it generally begins a nice conversation about who’s in charge and sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do in life. Then they will begrudgingly shuffle off to do the thing they don’t want to do but really don’t have a choice but to do. It’s called obedience. We don’t have to like it but we all have to obey someone at some point in life.
The weeks leading up to Easter are known by church people as the season of Lent. This time of year consists of the 40 days, not including Sundays, that go from Ash Wednesday up to Easter morning. The purpose of this time of year is to provide time for reflection and mediation and a re-centering of our lives around what’s most important.
Let’s admit it. By now the diligent work you started back in January with those New Year’s resolutions is for many of you a thing of the past. It’s great to have a quick check in time here in the first few months of the year to get us back on track again. Lent could very well be that time to help you refocus on the things that are most important.
Through these weeks of Lent at Living Word Galena, where I serve as pastor, we’re focusing on what Greek word. It was a word that Jesus spoke while on the cross. As a matter of fact, it was the final word that Jesus spoke from the cross. That word is tetelestai. It’s a funny sounding word but it simply means it is finished. But more than just it is finished there are six different angles we can take when evaluating this word. Each week through the season of Lent, we’ll look at another one of these perspectives of it is finished and see what that means for us today.
This week our focus was on the idea of accomplished. What did Jesus accomplish for us? Why did he need to accomplish it? What does it mean for our lives today that Jesus did what he did? The short version of this message is that back in the Garden of Eden when Adam ate that forbidden fruit, he really jacked up life for all of us. He sinned and his sin made me a sinner. I know it sounds crazy but check out the message to hear more. But more than Adam making me a sinner is the reminder from our message:
So there you have it. Jesus accomplished something far better than Adam ruined. Give the message a listen and join us each week as we look at another aspect of what it means that Jesus finished it on the cross.
Have you ever been so enthralled in Jesus that you just wanted to sit at his feet and never leave? If you’ve ever experienced this you know just how peaceful it is to be completely in Jesus’ presence. So often in life we face the constant demands of each new day and we are so easily distracted. Even at church I often find my mind wandering instead of sitting in the midst of my Savior.
This week we wrapped up a sermon series titled God Questions. It was a series all about questions we have for and about God. We’ve talked about Who is God and Is following God worth the trouble. This week we come face to face with a question of purpose. What does God have in store for me? Or a more general question of does God have anything in store for me? The short answer is yes, He does. But there’s so much more to it than just that.
It’s easy to let the things of this world start to make us change our outlook on life. People change and let us down. Those who seemed closed to us at one point start drifting toward other people. Our successes soon become things of the past. Our talents eventually fade. Our mistakes mount up. Those who respected us at one time, now look down on us or are simply ambivalent toward us. It’s easy to let these things changes negatively impact our view of life.
We all like to play God from time to time. We pretend that we know better. We act as if our way would somehow be able to change the future. But have you ever realized that when other people act like that, we have choice words for them. We want to give up on people who don’t live like we do. We walk away from people who get on our nerves. When someone says something that isn’t what we want to hear, it’s easier to walk away than stick it out and talk through the problem.
This week we started a new sermon series titled God Questions. The idea behind the series is that there are a series of questions that just about everyone asks at one point in time or another. These are what we consider the top three questions people have about God. Before we get into the series and the first message, let’s talk about the graphic for this series.
This past week we had the opportunity to share in a magnificent event for some amazing people in our community! It was by far the most rewarding experience of my life so I wanted to share this with you here. Normally, these Music Monday posts are Christian songs that have made their way into the top of the charts but this week we’re doing something different.
The past four weeks have been spent emptying us of our selfish desires so that we might be more filled with the things of Jesus. If you’re not a Jesus follower, then I understand this sounds a little corny but give me a few minutes and maybe something here will make a little sense.
We put the word at the end of our prayers. We sometimes say it when we agree with what the pastor says. We like to use the word as a way of agreeing with something someone says. We use it in religious contexts and even some secular ones as well. But what does it mean? And why is it so important?
